The Art of Debating
Ni LuhPutu Krisnawati¹, PutuAyuAstySenja Pratiwi², KomangSoemaryana Putra³
EnglsihDepartement, Faculty of Letter, Udayana University¹ EnglsihDepartement, Faculty of Letter, Udayana University² EnglsihDepartement, Faculty of Letter, Udayana University³
inacrisna@gmail.com¹ senja.dananjaya@yahoo.com²
Abstract
English is used by many people in the world for different purposes. For examples, some use English in relation to their job, profession, their study, and for their personal satisfaction. In this respect, English becomes very important language to study. For example in Indonesia, English is used as the secondary language to communicate to each other. The importance of English has been realized not only by individuals, but also by government. For instance, in Indonesia, English is thought as one of the subjects from primary school to university levels. At the university level, for instance at Udayana University there is an English Department as one of the departments of Faculty of Letters. In this department students can study various aspects of English language. One of the subjects taught isDebating. This is a very important subject in the sense that it helps students to realize that debating is a challenging and difficult job which requires the student to speak active English and also at the same time with a limited amount of time to be able to think critically and fast upon a certain motion. Besides, every year either in the national or world level there is always a debating competition.
Considering the above background, teaching debating as one of the speaking skill in a fun and attractive way is highly needed because there is various kind of system in debating. This research focuses on two important aspects in debating; they are (1) the strategies in teaching debating and (2) the approaches to construct a good argument because argument is the most essential thing in debating.
Introduction
As one of the means in communication, English play an important role in our daily life. English is used by many people all over the world for various purposes. For example, some use English in relation to their job, profession, their study and for their personal satisfaction. In this respect, English becomes very important language to study. For example in Indonesia, English is used as the secondary language to communicate to each other. The importance of English has been realized not only by individuals, but also by government. For instance, in Indonesia, English is thought as one of the subjects from primary school to university levels. At the university level, for instance at Udayana University there is an English Department as one of the departments in Faculty of Letters. In this department students can study various aspects of English language. One of the subjects taught isdebating.
According to Karl Popper debate is a formal contest of argumentation between two teams or individual. Thus, many people believe that through debating people can deliver their thoughts in a more democratic way, without insulting other people who oppose certain issues. In other words, the purpose of debating are: (1) to convince other people that his or her opinion is better, (2) to listen to what other people think of an issue, (3) to find which solution is the best for a problem. However, in fulfilling those purposes, a debater must bear in mind that debating has strict rules of conduct and quite sophisticated arguing techniques and often be in a position where debaters will have to argue the opposite of what they believe in.
Currently, there are two famous systems that is applied by many people in conducting a debate, either just for practice or for completion, those system are: (1) Asian Parliamentary System and (2) British Parliamentary System. In Asian Parliamentary System, there will be two teams debating upon a certain motion. One team will be the affirmative (government) team and another team will be the negative (opposition) team. Affirmative team and negative team consist of 3 speaker acting as the 1stspeaker, 2nd speaker, 3rd speaker and replay speaker. Each speaker has different role, in affirmative team (1) 1st speaker must set up the debate, define the motion, present the and provide a brief summary, (2) 2nd speaker must rebut the 1st negative’s major arguments, reinforce the argument delivered by the 1stspeaker, deliver substantial argument and recap the speech, (3) 3rdspeaker rebuts the point raised by the first two negative speaker, rebuild team case and summarize the issue of the debate. Meanwhile the role of speaker for negative teams are (1) 1st speaker of negative must provide a response to the definition (either accept or challenge the definition), rebuts 1st affirmative, present the negative’s theme line, outline the negative’s team split, delivers substantial arguments, recap the speech (2) 2ndspeaker must rebut the 2nd affirmative’s argument (could also rebut first two affirmative), reinforce the argument delivered by the 1st speaker, deliver substantial arguments and provide a brief summary (3) 3rd speaker must rebut the points raised by all three affirmative speakers, rebuild team’s case and summarize the issues of the debate. The role of reply speaker for both affirmative team and negative team is to give a recap of the debate and convincing biased adjudication.
minister), (2) 2nd team is the opening opposition (leader of opposition and deputy leader of opposition), (3) 3rd team is the closing government (member of government and government whip), and (4) 4th is the closing opposition (member of opposition and opposition whip) , in which each team consist of two speaker and each speaker have different speaker role. The speaker role of each speaker are (1) the Prime Minister must define the motion, deliver own substantive speech and flag the arguments to be delivered by the deputy prime minister, (2) leader of opposition must rebut prime minister, deliver own substantive material and flag the arguments to be delivered by the deputy leader of opposition, (3) deputy prime minister must rebut the leader of opposition and deliver own substantive material as flagged by prime minister, (4) deputy leader of opposition must rebut the prime minister and deputy prime minister and deliver own substantive materials as flagged by leader of opposition, (5) member of government must rebut the opening opposition, extend the case of government by delivering own substantive material and explain the different between opening government and closing government, (6) member of opposition must rebut the opening government and member of government, extend the case of opposition by delivering own substantive material, and explain the different between opening, and closing opposition, (7) government whip must deliver summaries and make comparison, rebut all opposition and not allowed to deliver own material, (8) opposition whip must deliver summaries and make comparisons, rebut all government and not allowed to deliver any new material.
For the brief explanation above, it can be seen clearly that there are differences between the both systems; however this research focus on the discussion of British Parliamentary System only. With respect to the present study, the research problems can be formulated as follows:
1. What are the strategies in teaching debating?
2. What are the approaches to construct a good argument because argument is the most essential thing in debating?
Research Method
The data for this study was descriptively described. This description is expected to give an adequate explanation of the data being discussed. The data sources of this research are 50 students of the English Department who took the debating class. Currently the respondents are in the 5th semester. The data collection is conducted using some method, they are:
1. Observation Method
The observation is conducted by a direct observation in class on how they understand the current curriculum and now how to debate upon a certain topic.
2. Questioner Method
In this method, questioner is given to student who took the debating class in order to know what they want for the curriculum of debating.
Finding and Analysis
The purpose of this part is to answer the aims being formulated: (1) what are the strategies in teaching debating? And (2) what are the approaches to construct a good argument because argument is the most essential thing in debating?
The strategies in teaching debating
In relation to the notion of debate, debating is a technique to deliver ones critical thinking through a democratic way without any emotional appeals, tolerance to others point of view, develop the ideals of reasoned arguments and personal bias. From the questioner it is found that the previous curriculum only teaches the basic skill of debating that is to either propose or oppose upon a certain topic. All 50 respondents answered that they were only given different topic each meeting and the lecturer told them to discuss the topic and they can raise their hand if they want to deliver their opinion. According to the respondent the scope of the topic is limited only with regional issues (issues that are happening in Bali and Indonesia) and they do not know how to debate or understand every single component in debating. 30 respondent says that even though the topic is limited it is still useful to develop their critical thinking skill, 10 respondent says that they want more than just a discussion in class regarding certain topic while the last 10 respondent says that they do not understand.
Based on the result, an observation is conducted in class. A motion regarding ‘That political quota is not the answer for women’ is given in class. From the observation it is found that what they have answered in the questioners matches the fact in class. They discuss only for 5 minutes and then raise their hands and deliver their point of view, it is just like a free debate where there a no rule and student can debate and rebut other student.
Since debating is now one of the programs from the government and they usually held a competition each year and choose the best debating team to represent Indonesia in the World University Debating Championship, it is a need to develop teaching strategies for the debating class in the English Department, Faculty of Letters, Udayana University. A syllabus in debating is highly needed so the student of English Department Faculty of Letters in order to compete in the debating competition. Nation and Maclister (2010:11) stated that a syllabus is made based on the some step, namely: needs analysis, determination ofthe principles ofteaching, setting goals andorderthe materials, designingthe form of teaching, includingthe assessment procedure, andevaluate the teaching process.
Based on that theory a new syllabus on debating is formulated as follows:
1. Week 1 and 2: Explaining everything related to British Parliamentary System. The student is expected to know and understand: (1) what is BP debating system, (2) how to win a BP debate, (3) rules in BP, (4) important terms in BP, (5) BP motion and its type and (6) speaker roles and order of speeches.
2. Week 3 and 4: student can understand the important elements in defining a motion, they are (1) what is a reasonable motion, (2) is there a clear issue to be debated and (3) definition DONTS.
3. Week 5: student is able to understand the definition of parameter, models and criteria di BP system, namely: (1) what is parameter for debate, (2) models and counter models and (3) what is criteria.
5. Week 7: the student knows and understand how to construct a case, namely (1) what is case, (2) what is argument, (3) what is examples and (4) what is restrictive case.
6. Week 8: is a review of the basic theory on BP system 7. Week 9: middle test for the basic theory of BP system.
8. Week 10 and 11: student know and understand everything about assessing a debate. They understand (1) what is adjudicator, (2) what is the duty of adjudicator, (3) how to be a good adjudcator, (4) what is range score, (5) what is victory point and (6) how to fill in adjudicator sheet.
9. Week 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16: the student is practicing how to debate and become a debater and adjudicator in a BP system.
When the student is acting as a debater, the student will be assed based on 3 criteria, namely: (1) matter–how the set up the case and the material to support their point of view.
(2) manner – the way they deliver their debate, their body language, language used, intonation, voice tone, eye contact, etc.
(3) method – how the construct their argument, the technique that they use to deliver their argument, knows which argument is more important than other and need to be deliver firstly. When acting as an adjudicator, the student a given a piece of paper which is called the “adjudicator sheet” they need to fill in the range of score, decide the point for each matter, manner and method and also write down the reason why they give the winning to chosen team.
Approaches to construct a good argument
An argument is the idea to show that you agree or disagree towards a certain topic. In composing an argument it must be made logical, brief and clear. Logical, brief and clear are three important components that are really important in determining the quality of an argument. It should be made logical to prevent any absurd arguments which are illogical, it should be brief and clear to make the adjudicator understand what the debater is talking about, a brief explanation is required.
In order to avoid unclear arguments, there is a simple structure to make a good argument. According to Tim Sonnerch (2012) argument should consists of AREL (assertion, reasoning, evidence and link-back). For example, when a student is given a motion “this house would create nuclear generator in Indonesia”, they should make a logical, brief and clear argument using the AREL method.
Assertion: We would create nuclear generator in Indonesia because the fossil fuels are running out and an alternative is required to fulfill the demand of electricity in Indonesia.
Reasoning: Fossil fuels are non-renewable. It will someday run out because the source is limited. The status quo also demands a high supply of electricity which our country could not give. A renewable alternative such as nuclear is required to solve this problem.
Evidence:
1. Many black-outs and a 17.00-22.00 policy are facts that Indonesia is running out of electricity source.
3. Besides that, nuclear is well known as a renewable source of electricity, small amount of it could be reused over and over.
Link-Back: Through the creation of new nuclear generator, the problem of limited fossil fuels can be solved. Since Indonesia will turn to nuclear. The problem of electricity will also be solved.
Summary
The findings shows that even though debating is a new subject in English Department, an improvement in the syllabus is needed in order to know and understand the right way in debating and also the after applying the new syllabus in class it is expected to improve the skill especially in speaking and critical thinking for the student remembering that at present they know and understand how to construct a good argument using the AREL method.
References
Colm, Flynn.Debating Tutorial Handouts.Availabe atwww.worlddebating.com Deanne, Alexander.The debating Handbook. Available atwww.worlddeabting.com
Nation, I.S.P. and Macalister, John. 2010.Language Curriculum Design. London: Routledge. Sonnreich, Tim. 2012.Monash Association of Debater Guide. Australia.
